Leaders, like athletes, need to rest if they want to perform at a higher level.

My readers know that athletics and fitness are a significant part of my life. I’ve been a strength and conditioning instructor for over ten years. I practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I’m learning new gymnastics skills like the rings, parallel bars, and hand balancing.

I’m in my mid 40’s. I feel the accumulation of old injuries. But I don’t see any reason to slow down yet. While some people approach fitness as a difficult habit to keep, I find it to be a byproduct of my lifestyle. I don’t feel right if I’m not moving, challenging myself and a little bit sore and tired.

I find this to be true of all the middle-aged & older athletes that I know. They love to move. They love to be challenged. Fitness is a benefit of all of that. Not a price they pay for health.

However, they (and I) most often tend to struggle to be disciplined in one area: Making room for recovery.

Leadership Parallel: Growth Happens During Recovery

People become fit through the process of stress. They stress their muscles, their nervous system, their cardiovascular systems.

This stress is tiring. It is often damaging on a small level. If it is sufficiently challenging, it triggers the brain to adapt the body to better handle the new stress. This is the process that increases someone’s fitness or performance.

Surprisingly, these times of stress are not when the athlete becomes stronger, more skillful or more enduring.

They only grow when they rest.

It is rest and recovery that allows the body to heal and adapt.

The challenge, for athletes, is the discipline to recover well. High-performance people have a mindset of “toughness” that helps them push through difficulty, discomfort, and pain.

But they have a hard time resting.

Effective leaders, entrepreneurial leaders, hard-charging leaders—are the same.

They thrive in challenging, demanding and stressful dynamics. They sprint up learning curves, power through difficult deadlines and stretch their skills in challenging conversations.

But they often struggle to rest.

Worse, they don’t give themselves an opportunity to grow and learn.

A leader doesn’t grow in the middle of a conflict, or a negotiation, or responding an organizational challenge.

A leader grows by going through the stress of those experiences and then resting. During recovery, they can reflect, adjust and grow.

But that is the challenge. Some leaders become so addicted to the stress, the push, the “go, go, go!” that they never allow themselves opportunities to recover and grow.

In some cases, this means they will burn-out and lose their joy. In others, it means they will make significant errors of judgment or execution. It often means they simply keep repeating certain mistakes and avoiding growth – so they plateau.

They hit their own, personal glass ceiling that they unwittingly built for themselves.

What Does Recovery Include?

When leaders (and athletes) get over-fatigued, they try to force rest fast. This often means indulging in unhealthy or counterproductive behaviors or habits. Self-medicating the stress, fatigue and unresolved emotions and injuries encountered.

This kind of “resting” is not recovery. It is an escape from pushing too hard. That’s all it is.

True recovery allows rest but also produces growth. In fitness, it usually means paying good attention to sleep and nutrition. It usually means staying active but in ways that are interesting but not particularly challenging. This is called “active recovery.”

For example, a powerlifter might take an active recovery week every three months by not lifting but instead going to yoga and taking a walk every day. This lifter will likely come back feeling more energetic, stronger and ready to go as result.

Five Types of Recovery That All Leaders Need

Athletes and Leaders need to recover in five different ways.

1. Daily Recovery: Athletes need to know “how much effort is enough” for each day. Then they stop to eat well and sleep well.

Leaders need to do the same. Too many leaders are fixated on accumulating enormous amounts of hours at work. They often aren’t focused enough on how productive they are or how effective they are with their time.

Leaders need to know “how much effort is enough” for each day. Then they need to eat well and sleep well. You should even move around a little. You exist in a physical body. You use a physical brain. If you don’t take care of those most fundamental tools – they won’t serve you as well or as long as they could.

2. Weekly Recovery: The best athletic training regimens build in at least one, often two rest days per week. More recovery is rarely necessary. But less recovery comes at a cost.

Leaders should have at least one day of rest from their responsibilities and problem solving per week. To not do so eventually leads to fatigue which leads to either lower productivity or costly errors.

It is helpful to have at least one other day of what you might call “active recovery” where you limit your stressful engagements or hours. Many leaders will block a day for reading, working on passion projects or engaging with a coach or peer relationships that they find encouraging.

3. Periodic Recovery: The best athletic training programs are often set up in 9-12-week cycles. Some may be longer or shorter. But at the end of each cycle, there is a planned week or two of active recovery.

Many clients find the idea of working in 90-day sprints to be very helpful. Depending on the needs and goals, your sprints might be a little longer or shorter. But the idea is to engage with high focus and intensity for a limited amount of time.

Then take a break. Perhaps this is a vacation. Perhaps heading to a conference or training that you find to be refreshing or inspiring. Perhaps scheduling a very light week to focus on different and interesting projects.

Whatever you do, the result should be that you feel rested. You take time to reflect on what you’ve been learning and how you are growing. You understand how you want to tackle the next sprint ahead.

4. Sabbatical: The word “Sabbatical” comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat. This has two historical meanings: The first is a weekly day of rest. The second was to allow agricultural land to rest every seven years. To lie fallow. To receive and absorb nutrients not be forced to produce.

It’s this second meaning that influences the word “sabbatical.” The practice of sabbatical most often takes place in universities. Professors will take periodic time away from normal duties to pursue new research, studies or projects. The idea is that they come back refreshed and with new ideas and energy to offer their students and research.

Executives are more and more often taking sabbaticals as well. They are planning extended periods to recover, reconnect with inspiration, learn and grow.

Along with the recovery of the leader, there is an additional benefit of taking a regular sabbatical: It requires that leaders build strong and healthy systems and management within their organizations – so that they can run successfully in their absence.

I have found that some executives fear that if they build a strong organization that doesn’t constantly need them, their presence will be resented, or they’ll be replaced. In practice, I have never seen this happen. Instead, their renewed vision and energy allows them to tackle new ventures and initiatives. They can focus on growth instead of maintenance.

5. Injury or Illness: What most athletes hate most about injuries is the time away from training or missing a competition. They can usually handle the pain. But they can’t handle “not moving.” But they must learn to rest, to focus on what they can do safely and be disciplined in their recovery. Or they won’t heal well or at all.

Leaders have physical injuries or illnesses too. But I’m referring to critical or acutely stressful situations where a leader has taken a hit psychologically, relationally or emotionally.

This could be a family crisis, a business failure, the death of a co-worker or the embarrassment of having made a major error. The temptation for many leaders is to isolate and lose themselves in their work. Others technically show up at work, but they aren’t able to contribute.

It’s a mistake and poor self-leadership to not be able to acknowledge when you need help.  I’m not necessarily suggesting that the leaders stop working – but they should develop a structured plan for recovery and growth through this difficult time.

Just as athletes work with their doctors and physical therapists to design their recovery, leaders should take the time to consult with a counselor or executive coach. For the leader, this may be a once in a lifetime crisis that they are facing. But for these experts, they’ve seen it many times. They can help you more quickly recover and get going again. Often stronger for the experience.

Take a Break, Take Lots of Breaks, You’ll Perform Better

Learning the skill of taking good breaks – of learning how to recover will make you a far more effective, insightful and productive leader.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that “taking a break” is easy to do. It often isn’t and may require discipline and accountability. But it is a critical part of success and growth. For yourself, your family and your organization.

Take good care,

Christian